Lawmakers confident sex offender loophole can be closed

Tuesday

Jun 24, 2008 at 9:26 AM

NEW BEDFORD - Sex offenders' prison sentences are usually so lengthy there shouldn't be any problem giving them due process over their offender classifications before, not after, they are released from prison.

Steve Urbon

NEW BEDFORD - Sex offenders' prison sentences are usually so lengthy there shouldn't be any problem giving them due process over their offender classifications before, not after, they are released from prison.

That's the view of state Reps. Robert Koczera and Antonio F.D. Cabral, both D-New Bedford Democrats, and Mayor Scott W. Lang."Don't let anybody go until you have a formal rating," Mayor Lang suggested Monday. "Don't have people out there as free agents."

That's going to require some changes.

The Standard-Times reported Saturday that 33 sex offenders in the city don't have to report to police because they are appealing their sex offender status.

The system is designed to categorize offenders on the basis of how likely they are to reoffend and how dangerous they remain to the community. Some accept the designation made before their release, but many in the more serious categories challenge their status because it restricts their lives.

The initial classification — Levels 1, 2 or 3 in ascending order of seriousness — sticks 90 percent of the time, officials say.

But the offenders nonetheless often have weeks, or months, without police supervision in a community, and they could be living anywhere, even in a prohibited zone near a school or park.

The appeals often create a gap during which an offender is free and without supervision; the lawmakers are searching for a way to close this legal loophole.

The issue caught local legislators' attention in January, when police arrested a man accused of raping a 6-year-old boy in the downtown New Bedford library. The suspect, Cory Deen Saunders, had been in the city for five months before he had to let police know he was here.

Rep. Koczera filed a bill in February that would give sex offenders an interim classification if they appeal the designation given to them by the state Sex Offender Registry Board.

Rep. Cabral filed a bill at the same time, proposing that the classification process begin earlier during an offender's prison sentence so that, even with an appeal, the classification could be completed before the offender is released.

Both bills ran into stumbling blocks, but Rep. Cabral said he expects some change to speed up the classification process to be approved by the end of July, likely as an amendment in the upcoming supplemental budget.

Rep. Koczera said Monday his measure ran afoul of previous court rulings that said such treatment violated the offenders' due process rights. Officials of the Sex Offenders Registry Board cited the same court rulings as the impetus for the review process that it uses now.

The problem is that even though it starts as much as a year before an offender's release date, the process isn't finished in many, if not most, cases. The result is that offenders are released and police are frustrated that they have no idea where they are until the board renders a final judgment.

Rep. Koczera said the House chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Eugene O'Flaherty, D-Boston, told him that his idea of temporary classifications wouldn't fly legally. "He was saying there is court precedent to throw it out," he said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Cabral had filed an amendment to a related sex offender bill to speed up the process by putting down markers for the various stages of the process. That's not without its problems, but Rep. Koczera said, "We thought the chairman was on board with the language. But in the end it didn't go through."

Now the lawmakers are looking at another amendment to establish time limits for such things as filing the original appeal and getting a court-appointed lawyer, the latter now taking as much as six months in some cases.

But no one has worked out what happens if the board fails to meet the deadlines. "The last thing I want to see is the offender winning on a technicality," said Rep. Koczera.

Mayor Lang, who is an attorney, said he cannot understand the assertion that an offender appealing his case cannot be given a temporary classification that requires him to register with the local police right away.

"I can't imagine why you can't have a temporary designation that restricts an individual" pending the review process. "On any given day of the week you err on the side of prudence."

Rep. Cabral, however, said holding an offender in jail while the appeal runs its course would also be trouble. "As far as I know, that's also been ruled unconstitutional, because these people have served their time," he said.

He said he believes that most, if not all, of the problem can be solved if the time lines are established and if there is no delay in assigning public defendants to the offenders.

The Committee for Public Counsel Services, he said, raised objections last month that stopped the amendment in the Judiciary Committee. The panel was worried that the agency's responsibilities were being ramped up without adequate funding.

Rep. Cabral said that since that is the main stumbling block, lawmakers will attempt to decide how much the agency will need, and the amendment will appear in the supplemental budget.